The Old Man
by Tani's Slave
Summary: An old man, alone in the world, finds one last ray of light in his life before passing into the next. One Shot. Death Fic


**The Old Man**

**A/N: **This is a little different take on the whole 'Naruto's Death' thing. I will admit that I was somewhat inspired by the Garth Brooks song "Cowboy Bill".

XXX

He lived in a little house at the very edge of the village. He was an old man, mostly bald, with little wispy white hairs growing out of his ears. His face was wrinkled and saggy with extreme old age and he had a tendency to keep mostly to himself.

The villagers whispered stories about the old man. Most of the stories were nonsense because the majority of the truth of the man's life had been lost in time and tide. From time to time the old man could be seen with his head bowed over the monument that marked the name of every Leaf ninja who had died in the line of duty.

A very few of the village's oldest members greeted the man with respect when he ventured out to purchase supplies from the market. Even these respected elders of the village knew little of the man as he had already been old when they were children. Some people speculated that he was as old as the village itself.

The man had no family and none could even claim to know his name. Somehow, over the years, the man had been left to fall into anonymity as those who did know him left him behind to seek their last great adventure.

So it was with a bit of surprise when one day as he sat on his porch, napping away the afternoon, he woke with a start, jostled awake by a small hand.

Bright blue eyes, never dulled by all hardships they had witnessed in life, looked down upon a child that could have been no more than five.

"Are you lost, little one?" The voice was raspy with age and disuse.

"No. I live just over there." The child pointed his chubby hand toward the nearest row of houses, just a few hundred yards away.

"Oh, and why aren't you there? Your mother will be worried about you." The voice was kinder than it should have been and the reprimand was somehow lost on the child.

"Nu uh, I'm a big boy, I'm almost six already. I'm allowed to walk around as long as I can see my house."

The old man chuckled. He really shouldn't have been surprised. In another year or two the boy would be old enough for the academy. Though they were in a long-standing time of peace, this was still one of the great hidden villages. 'They get younger all the time,' he couldn't help but think.

"Is that so? Well then, that still doesn't tell me why you are here?"

The little boy seemed to think for a minute. "You looked lonely. You sit here every day and never talk to nobody."

"Anyone," the old man corrected him. Still he smiled down at the all too perceptive child. It was true that he didn't talk to many people. Most just assumed that he wanted to be left alone in his old age and he was too tired to put forth the effort he had once exerted in finding friends. "I'm afraid that you'd be rather board sitting here with an old man like me. I'm not much good for playing games or sparing anymore."

The little boy seemed to sadden for a moment, but his face lit up when the old man mentioned sparing. "Were you a ninja?" he asked excitedly.

The old man chuckled again. "Yes, I was a ninja, but that was a long time ago."

"Really? Can you tell me some stories? You must have lots of them."

The old man looked down at that eager little face with its big brown eyes and couldn't find it in himself to say no.

"Alright, wait here a minute." The old man got up slowly from his chair and walked into the little house. He returned a moment later with a stool for the boy and a photo album under his arm. He patted the stool for the boy to sit next to him and propped the album on his knee letting it fall open. He flipped the thick, yellowed pages back to the beginning.

"Look up there, what do you see?" He gestured to the mountain in the distance.

"What? Do you mean the Hokage monument?" the boy asked a little uncertainly.

"Yes, I mean the monument. But what do you see when you look there?"

The little boy looked at the monument and studied it for several moments. "I see the ten Hokage. I see the greatest ten men and women of our village's history."

"Not a bad answer kid. Well, when I was your age there were only four faces on that mountain."

"Eh? You're that old!" The child's face seemed to stretch to comical proportions in his surprise.

The old man laughed once more, his amusement at the child seemed endless. "Yes, brat. I'm really that old. I'm one hundred and six years old, if you really want to know and no one is more surprised than I am that I've managed to live this long."

The child's eyes grew even bigger, if that was possible. He couldn't seem to comprehend that anyone could live that many years. "Wow."

"In a word. Anyway, I thought you wanted to hear a story. Or am I mistaken and you really just came to gawk at an old man?" but the old man's words were undermined by his kind smile.

The boy shook his head quickly. "No, I'm sorry. Please tell me the story."

"Now as I was saying: When I was your age there were only four faces on the mountain. The Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi, had taken back over after the death of the Yondaime…"

The old man went on to tell the boy about his time in the academy and how he managed, rather by chance, to become a ninja. By that time it was getting late and the old man hear dthe little boy's mother calling for him.

"That's you then, Takashi?"

"Mmm, yeah. Umino Takashi," the little boy said proudly.

"Well, I'm glad to have met you, Takashi chan. My name is Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto held his hand out to the little boy and smiled when Takashi shook it with a firm grasp.

"Can I come visit you again, Naruto jii-san?"

Naruto smiled sweetly at the little boy. "Sure."

The days went by in that fashion for a long time. Weeks turned into months and each day Takashi came to listen to Naruto tell his stories. As time went by some of the other village children came as well, each one with rapt attention as they listened to the stories of days and people long gone. When Takashi was old enough for the academy he stopped coming to listen to Naruto's stories, but the younger children came to take his place.

The adults in the village listened to their children recount the old man's tales and smiled with indulgence. They were convinced the old man simply had a good imagination. For one thing no one lived that long, for another some of the man's tales were just too far fetched to be believed. None of the history book remembered most of the tales and anything so grand as some of the stories were sure to have been recorded.

When Takashi graduated from the academy he came to see Naruto and the old man smiled at him and told him he was very proud.

When Takashi passed the Chuunin exam at thirteen he went to see Naruto again. Once more Old Man Naruto told him he was very proud.

One day not long after Takashi saw a large crowd near his home. As he got closer he realized that there were dozens of people outside of Naruto jii-san's house. When he got close enough he could that the people had placed flowers and little mementos around Naruto's chair on the porch, but Naruto himself was nowhere in evidence.

He looked to the closest person, "What's going on?"

The middle-aged woman looked over at him with tears in her eyes. "They found him this morning. The children came like always to listen to his stories and he never came out. One of them went inside and he was cold in his bed." She sniffled and huffed for a moment trying to compose herself. "I never believed the stories the kids passed along, but when the medics went in to get him they found all these old pictures and documents. Can you believe it? He was Uzumaki Naruto. _The Uzumaki Naruto, _Rokudaime Hokage. Everything he said was true. No one ever knew what happened to him." She trailed off sobbing.

Takashi could hardly believe his ears. The old man was dead. He had known the old man's name, but he had never put it all together. He had never fathomed just who the man was. He felt like a fool looking back on it. Uzumaki Naruto had almost single-handedly brought peace to the greater shinobi nations. Still, the old man had never spoken of his older days, but rather the times when he was young.

On that night, which just so happened to be October tenth, the whole village mourned for Naruto. The people who had not believed his stories apologized to their children for their doubt.

So it was, as one hundred and sixteen years of age, Uzumaki Naruto passed into his last great adventure. He had lived a long and fulfilling life, bringing light into every life he touched.

When he again met his precious people in the after life he proved once and for all that he would always be the number one ninja at surprising people, himself included. He had lived longer that anyone could have expected and in the end he earned more than just the respect of the village.

He had earned the love of an entire generation.


End file.
